Elric stood up, pushing back his cloak so that the great black broadsword at his hip was fully displayed. Most people in Old Hrolmar had heard of the runesword Stormbringer and its terrible power.
Elric crossed to the table where the young dandy sat.
"I pray you, gentlemen, to improve your sport! You can do much better now—for here is one who would offer you proof of certain things of which you speak. What of his penchant for vampirism of a particular sort? I did not hear you touch upon that in your conversation."
The young dandy cleared his throat and made a nervous little flirt of his shoulder.
"Well?" Elric feigned an innocent expression. "Cannot I be of assistance?"
The gossips had become dumb, pretending to be absorbed in their eating and drinking.
Elric smiled a smile which set their hands to shaking.
"I desire only to know what you wish to hear, gentlemen. Then I will demonstrate that I am truly the one you have called Elric Kinslayer."
The merchants and the nobles gathered their rich robes about them and, avoiding his eye, got up. The young dandy minced towards the exit—a parody of bravado.
But now Elric stood laughing in the doorway, his hand on the hilt of Stormbringer. "Will you not join me as my guests, gentlemen? Think how you could tell your friends of the meeting. . . ."
"Gods, how boorish!" lisped the young dandy and then shivered.
"Sir, we meant no harm . . ." thickly said a fat Shazarian herb trader.
"We spoke of another." A young noble with only the hint of a chin, but with an emphatic moustache, offered a feeble, placatory grin.
"We said how much we admired you . . ." stuttered a Vilmirian knight whose eyes appeared but recently to have crossed and whose face was now almost as pale as Elric's.
A merchant in the dark brocades of Tarkesh licked his red lips and attempted to conduct himself with more dignity than his friends. "Sir, Old Hrolmar is a civilised city. Gentlemen do not brawl amongst themselves here. . . ."
"But like peasant women prefer to gossip," said Elric.
"Yes," said the youth with the abundance of moustache. "Ah—no. ..."
The dandy arranged his cloak about him and glowered at the floor.
Elric stepped aside. Uncertainly the Tarkeshite merchant moved forward and then ran for the darkness of the street, his companions tumbling behind him. Elric heard their footsteps running on the cobbles and he began to laugh. At the sound of his laugh the footfalls became a scamper and the party had soon reached the quayside where the water gleamed, turned a corner and disappeared.
Elric smiled and looked up beyond Old Hrolmar's baroque skyline at the stars. Now there were more footsteps coming from the other end of the street. He turned and saw the newcomers step into a pool of light thrown from the window of a nearby office.
It was Moonglum. The stocky Eastlander was returning in the company of two women who were scantily dressed and heavily painted and who were without doubt Vilmirian whores from the other side of city. Moonglum had an arm about each waist and he was singing some obscure but evidently disgraceful ballad, pausing frequently to have one of the laughing girls pour wine down his throat. Both the whores had large stone flasks in their free hands and they were matching Moonglum drink for drink.
As Moonglum stepped unsteadily nearer he recognised Elric and hailed him, winking. "You see I have not forgotten you, Prince of Melnibone. One of these beauties is for you!"
Elric made an exaggerated bow. "You are very good to me. But I thought you planned to find some gold for us. Was that not the reason for coming to Old Hrolmar?"
"Aye!" Moonglum kissed the cheeks of the girls. They snorted with laughter. "Indeed! Gold it is—or something as good as gold. I have rescued these young ladies from a cruel whoremaster on the other side of town. I have promised to sell them to a kinder master and they are grateful to me!"
"You stole these slaves?"
"If you wish to say so—I 'stole' them. Aye, then, 'steal' I did. I stole in with my steel and I released them from a life of degradation. A humanitarian deed. Their miserable life is no more! They may look forward to ..."
"Their miserable lives will be no more—as, indeed, will be ours when the whoremaster discovers the crime and alerts the watch. How found you these ladies?"
"They found me! I had made my swords available to an old merchant, a stranger to the city. I was to escort him about the murkier regions of Old Hrolmar in return for a good purse of gold (better, I think, than he expected to give me). While he whored above, as he could, I had a drink or two below in the public rooms. These two beauties look a liking to me and told me of their unhappiness. It was enough. I rescued them."
"A cunning plan," Elric said sardonically.
" 'Twas theirs! They have brains as well as—"
"I'll help you carry them back to their master before the city guards descend upon us."
"But Elric!"
"But first . . ." Elric seized his friend and threw him over his shoulder, staggering with him to the quay at the end of the street, taking a good hold on his collar and lowering him suddenly into the reeking water. Then he hauled him up and stood him down. Moonglum shivered and looked sadly at Elric.
"I am prone to colds, as you know."
"And prone to drunken plans, too! We are not liked here, Moonglum. The watch needs only one excuse to set upon us. At best we should have to flee the city before our business was done. At worst we shall be disarmed, imprisoned, perhaps slain."
They began to walk back to where the two girls still stood. One of the girls ran forward and knelt to take Elric's hand and press her lips against his thigh. "Master, I have a message. . . ."
Elric bent to raise her to her feet.
She screamed. Her painted eyes widened. He stared at her in astonishment and then, following her gaze, turned and saw the pack of bravos who had stolen round the corner and were now rushing at himself and Moonglum. Behind the bravos Elric thought he saw the young dandy he had earlier chased from the tavern. The dandy wished for revenge. Poignards glittered in the darkness and their owners wore the black hoods of professional assassins. There were at least a dozen of them. The young dandy must therefore be extremely rich, for assassins were expensive in Old Hrolmar.
Moonglum had already drawn both his swords and was engaging the leader. Elric pushed the frightened girl behind him and put his hand to Stormbringer's pommel. Almost at its own volition the huge runesword sprang from its scabbard and black light poured from its blade as it began to hum its own strange battle-cry.
He heard one of the assassins gasp "Elric!" and guessed that the dandy had not made it plain whom they were to slay. He blocked the thrust of the slim longsword, turned it and chopped with a kind of delicacy at the owner's wrist. Wrist and sword flew into the shadows and the owner staggered back screaming.
More swords now and more cold eyes glittering from the black hoods. Stormbringer sang its peculiar song—half-lament, half-victory shout. Elric's own face was alive with battle-lust and his crimson eyes blazed from his bone-white face as he swung this way and that.
Shouts, curses, the screams of women and the groans of men, steel striking steel, boots on cobbles, the sounds of swords in flesh, of blades scraping bone. A confusion through which Elric fought, his broadsword clapped in both pale hands. He had lost sight of Moonglum and prayed that the Eastlander still stood. From time to time he glimpsed one of the girls and wondered why she had not run for safety.
Now the corpses of several hooded assassins lay upon the cobbles and the remainder were beginning to falter as Elric pressed them. They knew the power of his sword and what it did to those it struck. They had seen their comrades' faces as their souls were drawn from them by the hellblade. With every death Elric seemed to grow stronger and the black radiance from the blade seemed to burn fiercer. And now the albino was laughing.
His laughter rang over the rooftops of Old Hrolmar and those who were abed covered their ea
rs, believing themselves in the grip of nightmares.
"Come, friends, my blade still hungers!"
An assassin made to stand his ground and Elric swept the Black Sword up. The man raised his blade to protect his head and Elric brought the Black Sword down. It sheared through the steel and cut down through the hood, through the neck, through the breastbone. It clove the assassin completely in two and it stayed in the flesh, feasting, drawing out the last traces of the man's dark soul. And then the rest were running.
Elric drew a deep breath, avoided looking at the man his sword had slain last, sheathed the blade and turned to look for Moonglum.
It was then that the blow came on the back of his neck. He felt nausea rise in him and tried to shake it off. He felt a prick in his wrist and through the haze he saw a figure he thought at first was Moonglum. But it was another—perhaps a woman. She was tugging at his left hand. Where did she want him to go?
His knees became weak and he fell to the cobbles. He tried to call out, but failed. The woman was still tugging at his hand as if she sought to take him to safety. But he could not follow her. He fell on his shoulder, then on his back, glimpsed a swimming sky . . .
... and then the dawn was rising over the crazy spires of Old Hrolmar and he realised that several hours had passed since he had fought the assassins.
Moonglum's face appeared. It was full of concern.
"Moonglum?"
"Thank Elwher's gentle gods! I thought you slain by that poisoned blade."
Elric's head was clearing rapidly now. He rose to a sitting position. "The attacker came from behind. How . . . ?"
Moonglum looked embarrassed. "I fear those girls were not all they seemed."
Elric remembered the woman tugging at his left hand and he stretched out his fingers. "Moonglum! The Ring of Kings is gone from my hand! The Actorios has been stolen!"
The Ring of Kings had been worn by Elric's forefathers for centuries. It had been the symbol of their power, the source of much of their supernatural strength.
Moonglum's face clouded. "I thought I stole the girls. But they were thieves. They planned to rob us. An old trick."
"There's more to it, Moonglum. They stole nothing else. Just the Ring of Kings. There's still a little gold left in my purse." He jingled his belt pouch, climbing to his feet.
Moonglum jerked his thumb at the street's far wall. There lay one of the girls, her finery all smeared with mud and blood.
"She got in the way of one of the assassins as we fought. She's been dying all night—mumbling your name. I had not told it to her. Therefore I fear you're right. They were sent to steal that ring from you. I was duped by them."
Elric walked rapidly to where the girl lay and he kneeled down beside her. Gently he touched her cheek. She opened her lids and stared at him from glazed eyes. Her lips formed his name.
"Why did you plan to rob me?" Elric asked. "Who is your master?"
"Urish . . ." she said in a voice that was a breeze passing through the grass. "Steal ring . . . take it to Nadsokor. . . ."
Moonglum now stood on the other side of the dying girl. He had found one of the wine flasks and he bent to give her a drink. She tried to sip the wine but failed. It ran down her little chin, down her slim neck and on to her wounded breast.
"You are one of the beggars of Nadsokor?" Moonglum said.
Faintly, she nodded, "Urish has always been my enemy," Elric told him.
"I once recovered some property from him and he has never forgiven me. Perhaps he sought the Actorios ring in payment." He looked down at the girl. "Your companion—has she returned to Nadsokor?"
Again the girl seemed to nod. Then all intelligence left the eyes, the lids closed and she ceased to breathe.
Elric got up. He was frowning, rubbing at the hand on which the Ring of Kings had been.
"Let him keep the ring, then," said Moonglum hopefully. "He will be satisfied."
Elric shook his head.
Moonglum cleared his throat. "A caravan is leaving Jadmar in a week. It is commanded by Rackhir of Tanelorn and has been purchasing provisions for the city. If we took a ship round the coast we could soon be in Jadmar, join Rackhir's caravan and be on our way to Tanelorn in good company. As you know, it's rare for anyone of Tanelorn to make such a journey. We are lucky, for . . ."
"No," said Elric in a low voice. "We must forget Tanelorn for the moment, Moonglum, The Ring of Kings is my link with my fathers. More—it aids my conjurings and has saved our lives more than once. We ride for Nadsokor now. I must try to reach the girl before she gets to the City of Beggars. Failing that, I must enter the city and recover my ring."
Moonglum shuddered. "It would be more foolish than any plan of mine, Elric. Urish would destroy us."
"None the less, to Nadsokor I must go."
Moonglum bent and began systematically to strip the girl's corpse of its jewellery. "We'll need every penny we can raise if we're to buy decent horses for our journey," he explained.
Chapter Three
The Cold Ghouls
Framed against the scarlet sunset, Nadsokor looked from this distance more like a badly kept graveyard than a city. Towers tottered, houses were half-collapsed, the walls were broken.
Elric and Moonglum came up the peak of the hill on their fast Shazarian horses (which had cost them all they had) and saw it. Worse—they smelled it. A thousand stinks issued from the festering city and both men gagged, turning their horses back down the hill to the valley.
"We'll camp here for a short while—until nightfall," Elric said. "Then we'll enter Nadsokor."
"Elric, I am not sure I could bear the stench. Whatever our disguise, our disgust would reveal us for strangers."
Elric smiled and reached into his pouch. He took out two small tablets and handed one to Moonglum.
The Eastlander regarded the thing suspiciously. "What's this?"
"A potion. I used it once before when I came to Nadsokor. It will kill your sense of smell completely—unfortunately your sense of taste as well. . . ."
Moonglum laughed. "I did not plan to eat a gourmet meal while in the City of Beggars!" He swallowed the pill and Elric did likewise.
Almost instantly Moonglum remarked that the stink of the city was subsiding. Later, as they chewed the stale bread which was all that was left of their provisions, he said:
"I can taste nothing. The potion works."
Elric nodded. He was frowning, looking up the hill in the direction of the city as the night fell.
Moonglum took out his swords and began to hone them with the small stone he carried for the purpose. As he honed, he watched Elric's face, trying to see if he could guess Elric's thoughts.
At last the albino spoke. "We'll need to leave the horses here, of course, for most beggars disdain their use."
"They are proud in their perversity," Moonglum murmured.
"Aye. We'll need those rags we brought."
"Our swords will be noticed: . . ."
"Not if we wear the loose robes over all. It will mean we'll walk stiff-legged, but that's not so strange in a beggar."
Reluctantly Moonglum got the bundles of rags from the saddle-panniers.
So it was that a filthy pair, one stooped and limping, one short but with a twisted arm, crept through the debris which was ankle deep around the whole city of Nadsokor. They made for one of the many gaps in the wall.
Nadsokor had been abandoned some centuries before by a people fleeing from the ravages of a particularly virulent pox which had struck down most of their number. Not long afterwards the first of the beggars had occupied it. Nothing had been done to preserve the city's defences and now the muck around the perimeters was as effective a protection as any wall.
No one saw the two figures as they climbed over the messy rubble and entered the dark, festering streets of the City of Beggars. Huge rats raised themselves on their hind legs and watched them as they made their way to what had once been Nadsokor's senate building and which
was now Urish's palace. Scrawny dogs with garbage dangling in their jaws warily slunk back into the shadows. Once a little column of blind men, each man with his right hand on the shoulder of the man in front, tapped their way through the night, passing directly across the street Elric and Moonglum were in. From some of the tumble-down buildings came cacklings and titterings as the maimed caroused with the crippled and the degenerate and corrupted coupled with their crones. As the disguised pair neared what had been Nadsokor's forum there came a scream from one shattered doorway and a young girl, barely over puberty, dashed out pursued by a monstrously fat beggar who propelled himself with astounding speed on his crutches, the livid stumps of his legs, which terminated at the knee, making the motions of running. Moonglum tensed, but Elric held him back as the fat cripple bore down his prey, abandoned his crutches which rattled on the broken pavement, and flung himself on the child.
Moonglum tried to free himself from Elric's grasp but the albino whispered: "Let it happen. Those who are whole either in mind, body or spirit cannot be tolerated in Nadsokor."
There were tears in Moonglum's eyes as he looked at his friend. "Your cynicism is as disgusting as anything they do!"
"I do not doubt it. But we are here for one purpose—to recover the stolen Ring of Kings. That, and nought else, is what we shall do."
"What matters that when . . . ?"
But Elric was continuing on his way to the forum and after hesitating for a moment Moonglum followed him.
Now they stood on the far side of the square looking at Urish's palace. Some of its columns had fallen, but on this building alone had there been some attempt at restoration and decoration. The archway of the main entrance was painted with crude representations of the Arts of Begging and Extortion. An example of the coinage of all the nations of the Young Kingdoms had been imbedded in the wooden door and above it had been nailed, perhaps ironically, a pair of wooden crutches, crossed as swords might be crossed, indicating that the weapons of the beggar were his power to horrify and disgust those luckier or better endowed than himself.
Elric stared through the murk at the building and he had a calculating frown on his face.
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